—story by Ross Courtney
—photo by TJ Mullinax
—graphics by Ross Courtney and Jared Johnson
Walt Duflock, a fifth-generation California farmer, considers his state a cautionary tale for Washington.
Labor costs have grown by a factor of eight over the past 12 years. Acreage is fleeing to other states and countries. Even technology, once a Silicon Valley specialty, is a “train wreck,” he said.
“That means agrifood tech is also in a little bit of a train-wreck position,” said Duflock, vice president for innovation at California-based Western Growers, during his statistics-laden keynote address in January at Cherry Institute, the annual meeting of Northwest cherry producers, held in Yakima, Washington.
Duflock, who owns a cattle ranch, wine grape vineyard and leafy greens farm near Salinas, touts automation as a solution for rising labor costs. Through his work with Western Growers, he helps tech startup entrepreneurs learn about the specialty crops of the West Coast and find growers to work with.
The only other option for California, he said, is to cut back on its signature specialty crops that require so much hand labor. However, acreage and automation go hand in hand, he argued at Cherry Institute. Once ag acreage is gone, the technology designed to serve it follows. Someone building a robotic strawberry picker naturally would prefer to work near strawberries.
“The secret to keeping ag tech in California and Washington is keeping the acreage in California and Washington,” he said. “Because guess what? The ag tech folks, they’ll tell you, they will go where the food is grown.”
It’s happening, Duflock said. Agricultural acreage has been declining in California. If U.S. Department of Agriculture census data continues showing its current trend, by 2052, California will lose one-third of the farm acreage and half the farmers the state had in 1997.
Washington is on a similar trajectory, just not as steep.
Duflock partially blames California’s policymakers, accusing them of spending too much money on diversity programs and climate initiatives and too little on port infrastructure, agricultural workforce development and water storage.
The state relies on H-2A labor for 10 percent of its farm workforce. H-2A wage minimums and prevailing wages, plus the food and housing costs, together with state policies, push the cost for an H-2A employee to $29 per hour in California.
Washington’s minimum wage is $16.66 per hour, the highest in the nation, but California leads the contiguous 48 states with an Adverse Effect Wage Rate, a federally set and regionalized H-2A wage floor, of $19.97 per hour. The Northwest AEWR is close behind at $19.82.
He contrasted California with Peru. Near Lima, the federal government has built new mountain reservoirs and a modern, deep-water port — owned by a Chinese-state-backed shipping company and a Peruvian mining company — that opened in November. Duflock doesn’t advocate letting China build infrastructure in the United States, but he argues Peru’s growth-minded policies have created a growing agricultural class, Duflock said.
“Peru is building the right stuff, making the right policy decisions, and making very different policy decisions than our friends in Sacramento,” said Duflock, who recently visited Peru.
Meanwhile, ag automation in the U.S. is having its own financial struggles with a decrease in venture capital funding, Duflock said.
After a spike of $53 billion in 2021, investment in agrifood tech — a category that includes everything from farm operations to greenhouse production facilities to plant-based protein alternatives — dropped 69 percent by the end of 2023. An overall dip in tech investment helps explain that, but he blames overhype and overvaluations of indoor vertical farming operations that have left venture capitalists gun-shy.
However, Duflock also highlighted some automation success stories. Seattle-based Carbon Robotics has sold 100 of its laser weeders, which are manufactured in Richland, Washington. Burro, the Philadelphia-based makers of a self-driving farm wagon, has nearly 500 units helping crews haul lugs of table grapes and blueberries, mostly through Southern California fields. GUSS of California and Robotics Plus from New Zealand have autonomous sprayers in Washington orchards. Monarch Tractor from California and now John Deere have orchard-sized autonomous tractors for sale, while Israeli company Bluewhite sells kits to automate existing tractors in the Western U.S.
B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherries, which hosted Cherry Institute, called Duflock’s message comprehensive and sobering.
“Based on Walt’s assumptions, we potentially stand to legislate our ag producers out of business,” Thurlby said. “His examples of several large ag companies setting up shop in South America is proof enough for me that change is going to have to happen across the Western ag labor landscape.”
Steve Mantle, owner of Walla Walla, Washington, ag data company innov8.ag, visits California often and said Washington should learn from California and invest in the agricultural technology environment.
To help growers keep up with labor costs, and keep innovation in Washington, Mantle said the state government “could, should, must” subsidize early adoption of technology. Sales tax waivers are one suggestion. Some local governments are experimenting with an ag technology lending library or data hubs to help farmers navigate the changes.
“Make it a friendly environment for those technologies to operate in,” Mantle said. •
Leave A Comment